


The Natural Relations of Gentlemen

by Dolevalan



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:19:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5409725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolevalan/pseuds/Dolevalan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which  Tenzing Tharkay is a surprisingly frank correspondent, and William Laurence does not react completely as expected. Set between Victory of Eagles and Tongues of Serpents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Natural Relations of Gentlemen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oanja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oanja/gifts).



_And I do wish, Laurence, that either your fond but foolish Temeraire or your own Self would prompt you that you are still the man you were, despite this wretchedness your sense of Honour led you to twist yourself to accommodate. You half seem a Shadow, sitting on the deck and barely even roused to read aloud, as I have so often seen you do in the worst depths of Worry or Sorrow. Were that it was as obvious to you as to me that a worser man would feel no such Compunction about his former acts. Your very Remorse brands you better than you think yourself, but yet proof against the comfort of friends. I have seen Captain Granby and Temeraire do what they may to no avail, so I do not delude myself that this Letter will improve your countenance when they cannot. Even so, I must speak. ___

Tharkay’s correspondence was, in general, confined to the practical. His way of life required a delicate web of contacts, a web that needed tending. So much of what flowed from his pen consisted of requests for a rendezvous or scouting reports or simple acknowledgment of receipt of a message.

The letters he wrote to Laurence were not like anything else to which Tharkay put his pen. Indeed, he often thought ironically, who would he write in such a manner? He had no family, no connections underpinned by tighter bonds than mutual convenience and a modicum of trust. When even aviators pitied one’s solitude, he now sometimes thought, that solitude was complete indeed.

_You once asked me how I bear my isolated Life, Laurence. How I managed without the North Star of some Cause greater than myself to guide and shape my Actions. I am not certain you know that you are not the first to ask such a Question; allow me to assure you, you are not. Yet most of those who asked it in the past were concerned with the soundness of my Conscience, whether it was sufficiently robust to serve a moral Guide without further shaping from external Authority._

_Yet I know you, and it has been many Years since such a Motive would stir you to speak thus to me, even if you did wonder as much in your secret heart. In the depths of your most wretched Hour, you asked how I bear my solitude out of Fear that I might be wretched myself. Not one in a hundred Englishmen would ponder such a thing, Laurence. I know you, but I wonder how well you can know me without understanding this simple Fact._

It had started after Dresden. He wasn’t sure, at first, why he was wasting paper on unfolding his deepest thoughts to the starched captain he’d left behind – no, that wasn’t fair, Tharkay corrected himself. Even that early, Laurence had proved himself more than the sum of his sense of duty, though he did his best to convince himself he was little more. Tharkay sometimes wondered about the bond between captain and dragon; was it inevitable that a bit of a dragon’s power would rub off on the man (or woman) so bonded? Even the English, try as they might, could not stamp the individuality out of the Aerial Corps so completely as it did the Navy or the Army.

He remembered those first letters, as he approached the Pamirs, had been mainly full of frustrated questions, posed to the empty air as much as to Laurence. Most of them had been variations on a theme: Why, Tharkay asked himself, was he preparing to go back at all? What did it matter to him, what became of the Englishman and his dragon? Tharkay's answers to himself remained vague and unsatisfactory; the Laurence he created in his mind did not offer any opinion whatsoever.

_I answered you then, I believe, something to the effect that I bore it because Habit had reconciled me to my Situation. This is true, in the main. You so often forget that the Respect you show me does not extend to the general Population, which is a trait that is endearing and aggravating in, I sometimes think, equal measure. I have made Virtue of Necessity, where Freedom is concerned, and I am sometimes tempted to laugh (credit it though you may not) at the doleful Expression you make when imagining times that have been, in Truth, as often a pleasure to me as a burden. I chose Solitude freely, because of the few options to hand, it was the one I relished most._

_But I also told you that I have less inclination, by Nature or otherwise, to hold myself responsible for the Sins of the World, as well as my own. Of course I have Faults I know well, and doubtless some of which I am not aware as well. But when a Man does me ill, I lay the charge on him. I do not imagine some Fault of my own is to blame for him using me thus. To do otherwise in my place would be to court Despair. Yet I cannot teach you how to forgive yourself the Crimes of others, once you have willingly shouldered them as your own. I wish, Laurence, you would put them down. You exhaust us all._

Even when living with his father, Tharkay had never been a voluble man. Even with Sara, he had taken care to make clear the contents of thoughts – of his heart – but had done so in relatively few, well-chosen words. He saw what came of men’s readiness to expound, at length, on every fleeting notion that passed through their brains.

So it was an odd sort of freedom he found in his letters to Laurence. In the Pamirs, he had burned them as soon as they were written, before the ink had even dried. Now it had become something of a ritual in its own right. He sealed the letter, wrote Laurence’s name on the outside and let it sit. Sometimes he would wait an hour; sometimes he would tuck it among his effects until he prepared to retire for the night or carry it on his person as he went about his business. Some letters he would let sit entire days before deliberately touching the corner to a candle flame.

There was satisfaction in watching them burn. At least Tharkay told himself so.

_You told me that you were glad we would be Shipmates, before this Voyage began. I thought we understood one another then. It is now evident we did not. I would shake you, if I thought it would do the least good, even at the risk of distressing Temeraire. Yet I suspect a Shaking is not what you need, presently. What it is that you do need, I confess I do not know._

It was odd writing to Laurence when they were so physically near to one another. Most of his letters had been written while Tharkay was about his own business, dozens or hundreds of miles away. If he was honest with himself, Tharkay had not consciously intended to write Laurence during the journey to Australia at all; he would have the man’s company in earnest for months, and he had always thought he wrote Laurence because Laurence himself was not present.

It was a fortnight after they left England that Tharkay wrote his first letter from aboard ship, and it gave the lie to his old supposition. Was it that Laurence was so dejected, after what he’d done for Wellington? Guilty to bring his beloved dragon into exile, far from any possible military use to his home country while war dragged on? Or was it simply that Tharkay had imagined himself into believing in an intimacy that did not, in fact, exist due to his long, one-sided correspondence? He feared that even if this last was not the principle reason, it was not without some ring of truth.

Yet still he wrote. Still he burned.

\---

Tharkay was a careful man in every particular. So when he misplaced one of the letters, he soon knew it. Retracing his actions did not lead to its retrieval, and though he gave no sign, he began planning for the worst. Portions of the letter would be an embarrassment; others would be outright compromising. It would all come down to who found the damned thing first.

Two days later, there was a letter waiting in his cabin. Instead of his own hand addressing Laurence, however, it was Laurence’s hand that traced the letters of Tharkay’s name on the envelope. Tharkay stared at it for a few moments, uncertain of how to proceed. Finally, he slit the envelope and removed the paper inside.

It was – "Polite" was not quite the word Tharkay wanted. "Correct," perhaps. Even, but as if it were not entirely simple to be so. Laurence related that he had thought the letter, which Roland had found by chance and given to him since it bore his name, had been intended for his receipt. He had read nearly the whole before realizing otherwise. He begged pardon for the invasion of privacy and assured Tharkay in terms precisely calculated not to mortify either of them that they need never speak of the incident again if it were contrary to Tharkay’s wishes.

Laurence did not mention his own wishes in any capacity.

It would be easier to let it go, Tharkay knew. Laurence’s own sensibility would keep him from mentioning or acting upon anything in the letter - even the most compromising portions - and he had no doubt they could create a facsimile of continuing as they had before.

But, Tharkay realized, it would not do. 

Instead, he invited Laurence to his cabin for a drink, the closest they would get to anything like privacy aboard ship. Of course Laurence accepted.

The cabin was not luxurious; for all Tharkay had paid well for his passage, the _Allegiance_ was still serving as a prisoner transport and Tharkay was not part of the crew or a person of any particular note. He found it comfortable enough, but with Laurence sitting on the three-legged stool near the foot of his berth, it seemed much smaller and barer.

Tharkay took a moment to pour them both some wine. Laurence, as ever, was unwilling to let the silence stretch quite so long as Tharkay himself would have preferred, and said, “How are you finding the journey?” and then nearly winced as he evidently heard the blandness of his own opening gambit.

Tharkay’s expression was wry as he handed Laurence his drink. “Is that really where you wish to begin?”

Laurence exhaled. “No.” He looked slightly less haunted than he had, at the beginning of the voyage; for all that none of them were getting fat on ship's rations, the sea air seemed to do him some good. And he was taking care of himself with a bit more care, Tharkay noted; if no longer an officer, then at least a proper English gentleman. Or the appearance of one.

“No,” Laurence, continued after a moment, “I imagine you wanted to see me about the letter.”

“I’ve seen you for weeks,” Tharkay said, mildly, “but I did not prefer to discuss the letter on the dragon deck.”

“I did not tell Roland of her mistake,” Laurence said, taking a small draught of the wine. “It was honestly made, and I saw no reason to chastise her for it, especially when she is ignorant of the letter’s contents.”

Tharkay waved the concern away. “Laurence, I have no intention of upbraiding you or your crew. The mistake was honest; the letter had your name on it. But for all your manners will allow you to pretend you never read it, you did. I would prefer to dispense with the pretense, if it is all the same to you.” He took a drink himself.

Laurence looked uncertain. “I am not entirely certain…”

“I meant what I wrote,” Tharkay said, after a moment, “though obviously I did not mean it to be read. Still, I think we would both of us be more at our ease if I took my leave soon after we arrived in Sydney.” He glanced away from Laurence, annoyed at himself for the necessity of dropping the other man’s gaze. But it was necessary all the same, annoyance or not.

“The East India Company has engaged me to perform a service once we arrive; such work often leads to more work of the same nature, and it will not be difficult to keep myself out of your way until I have occasion to depart.”

“Ah.” Laurence’s tone made Tharkay glance back at him, and he looked less relieved than Tharkay had expected. “Of course I never imagined you would linger about the colony indefinitely. Doubtless you have a great many plans that will…” He trailed off.

“…yes,” Tharkay said, when it was clear Laurence was not going to take up the abandoned sentence. They rocked slightly with the ship’s motion, but otherwise both men were very still.

“I’d simply - ” Laurence broke out, after a moment, “I’d simply thought we might have a little more of your company before being forced to forego the pleasure of it, and it pains me to think my mistake may have cut our intercourse short. There’s no reason,” he said, more feelingly, “no reason you should have to keep yourself out of my way.”

Laurence finished his wine, then added, almost to himself, “I wish you wouldn’t.”

Tharkay had never actively imagined Laurence reading the letters, not in any real way. It occurred to him that if he had, he would not have expected this reaction. He felt the impulse to reach over and clasp Laurence’s arm.

Instead, he said, “My business does not compel me to leave Australia soon of necessity. I simply thought it might put you more at ease.”

“It pains me to think I have given you cause to think so,” Laurence replied. “Of course I would never wish you to linger against your own inclinations. But I will never be glad to be deprived of your company.”

The position, Tharkay felt, was oddly vulnerable; he’d unfolded his own mind more deeply to Laurence than to anyone else alive, not entirely on purpose, and now he was left attempting to divine meaning beneath Laurence’s polite civilities from tone and posture alone. It was lucky, at least, that Laurence was a text Tharkay was well-used to parsing. Mostly.

“You have not given me cause,” he said, quietly, “other than my knowledge of you as a gentleman.”

“I burned the letter,” Laurence broke out, almost abrupt. “No one else will read it again, myself included.”

Tharkay felt a rush of grateful affection, though he did not let it touch his expression. “That’s well.” He moved to fill their glasses again.

There was another pause, more comfortable if not less fraught. Eventually, Laurence said, “You could write me, you know. When you go. Letters I’m actually meant to read.”

Tharkay, startled, laughed. “I suppose.” He considered the man before him, not unlike the Laurence he’d written to in his mind, but more solid, more aggravating and more complicated. “Perhaps I will.”


End file.
